Becoming Sarah - By Miranda Simon Page 0,2

twenties, I guessed. Brown eyes. Creamy skin, sooty lashes. Black hair, cut in a bob short enough to frame a flawless face and a model’s sultry pout. It was a breathtakingly pretty face. Chic. Sophisticated. The opposite of the old me.

I looked down. I wore a pair of pale blue silk pajamas, the fabric fine and soft that it floated on my skin. The pajama bottoms hung on slim, almost boyish hips. In a daze, I unbuttoned the top to reveal breasts were small enough to cup in my palms. A small silver loop pierced my belly button. I touched it tentatively, as if it might hurt, as if the true owner of this body might slap my fingers away. I ran my palms over a belly flat and taut as a movie star's.

I couldn’t argue with the truth. I was somebody else.

And Sarah Elizabeth Winslow, if this was her body and her bathroom – where was she? Waking up in a hospital room, wondering why the nurses kept calling her Jamie Lumley? Why she now wore glasses and had red-brown hair hanging limply to her shoulders?

Cold water still gushed from the spigot. I scooped up enough to wash the foul taste from my mouth, then turned off the flow with a sharp, angry twist of the handle. My throat still felt as if I’d swallowed a knife with jagged edges. My stomach hurt; my whole body ached as if I’d been beaten, but from the inside out. Part of me wanted to lie down again on the cool tile floor, close my eyes, and sleep until I could wake up in my own bed at home, under my fuzzy pink blanket, with my clock radio tuned to my favorite pop station. I’d hit the snooze button once or twice, curling deeper into my warm cocoon, before reluctantly swinging my feet over the edge of the bed and into frayed but comfortable Bugs Bunny slippers. I would pad out into the living room, where my mother slept on the couch, and – if she was working – shake her shoulder until she groaned and muttered, “All right, all right, I’m getting up.” I’d turn on the coffee maker, and pry my eyes fully open once the smell of brewing java filled every nook and cranny of our tiny flat.

But no, that wasn’t an option now. I washed my face and dried it on an impossibly fluffy towel hung next to the sink, then pushed open the bathroom door. I moved through the rooms, quiet as a cat burglar, touching nothing. I was half certain that someone would come storming in and ask what I was doing where I didn’t belong. It was clear I didn’t belong here, in this apartment with its hardwood floors, white leather couch, high ceilings and a view of a quiet, tree-lined street bathed by early-afternoon spring sunshine. On the kitchen counter I found an iPhone, a set of keys and a wallet next to a stack of mail thrown carelessly on a counter. The counter shone so white and clean I couldn’t believe anyone had ever cooked a meal there.

I fumbled the wallet open. It held stack of twenties crisp from the ATM, and so thick my stomach turned somersaults. For sure, more money than I earned in a month of shelving books. A platinum Visa in the name of Sarah E. Winslow. American Express, ditto. A membership card for a gym downtown. And – bingo – a California driver’s license. Same name, and a photo of the girl in the mirror, her eyes rimmed with black kohl, her expression sulky. According to the date of birth, she’d turned 24 just last month. Her address was on Hayes Street, San Francisco, apartment No. 4.

So now I knew who I was, and presumably where. I figured I could find out a whole lot more by going through the mail, or checking the files on the computer I’d glimpsed in the spare room, or listening to the messages on the frantically blinking answering machine. But while I’d accepted – for now – that I was no longer in possession of my own body, I wasn’t nearly ready to let go of myself, of Jamie. For all I knew, this Sarah person could show up any minute and demand her life back. I’d be happy to give it to her, too, in return for my own. My mother must be going out of her mind right now. And